Transfigurations

Welcome to Transfigurations! This blog is intended to serve the orthodox Anglican community and the wider Christian community. We pray that all that is posted here will be faithful to the Scriptures as the inspired word of God, speak the truth in love, edify, bless and transform this local body of Christ, and be an impetus for revival, repentance, prayer and intercession!

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Elmwood Park October 2015

Raymond and his Uncle Vinny visited Elmwood Park to enjoy its beauty and do a bit of a photo shoot. It really is a gem in the midst of a fairly crowded neighborhood. -PD

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Detroit "Pleased" that Kids Can't Read or Write
Only 4 percent of Detroit public school eighth graders are proficient or better in math and only 7 percent in reading. But don't worry, this is good news. It seems Detroit public schools have sucked for so long, it's ok because they're sucking at the same level they've sucked in recent years. In short, the rate of suckage is consistent.

Check this out: "While these scores clearly indicate that Detroit Public Schools has more work to do to improve student outcomes in reading and math, we are pleased that the scores appear to be leveling out," Detroit Public Schools spokeswoman Michelle A. Zdrodowski said in a statement.

“It was really confusing to me at first because I didn’t really know what to do, so the first thing I did was tell my mom,” Jordan said...

Court Restrains The Puddle Police For Now ...If the WOTUS rule is allowed to stand, private property rights for all citizens will be in jeopardy. If the EPA can claim the federal government can regulate manmade ditches and standing water, what private lands will be left? Will puddles be regulated? What about pools? Is there any real environmental benefit to having the federal government extend its reach into our backyards? The answer is clearly no...

Each accounted for between 1.1 million and 1.2 million deaths in 2014.

The WHO said the tuberculosis figures were unacceptable for a disease that could be cured...

Should Christians Take Part in Halloween Celebrations? Jesus-loving, Bible-reading, well-meaning Christians disagree about whether it is appropriate for a believer to participate in Halloween activities. Those who think that Christians shouldn’t participate in any way cite the holiday’s roots in the pagan celebration Samhain. Those who think Christians can engage with Halloween celebrations point out that there’s nothing inherently wrong with carving gourds and begging for candy.

These kinds of disputes are not uncommon in the history of the church. In Biblical times, believers argued about all kinds of things like food, festivals, celebrations, and rules (for example see Colossians 2:16). So what guidance does the Bible give us as we think through how to respond to Halloween? (Full disclosure: we carve pumpkins and go trick-or-treating in my house)...

Sen. Ted Cruz Demolishes CNBC Moderators

Ben Carson at GOP Debate: Belief in Traditional Marriage is Not Homophobia ..."Well obviously, you don't understand my views on homosexuality. I believe that our Constitution protects everybody, regardless of their sexual orientation or any other aspect. I also believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. There is no reason that you can't be perfectly fair to the gay community. They shouldn't automatically assume that because you believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, that you are a homophobe,” Carson said.

"This is one of the myths perpetrated on our society, and this is how they are fighting people and get people to shut up. That's what the PC culture is all about and it's destroying this nation."...

IBD's Jed Graham dug into ObamaCare premiums for 2016 in 37 major metro areas and found two disturbing trends.

First, average premiums for the cheapest ObamaCare plans in these markets will be almost 13% higher than this year. Premiums in 22 of them will climb 10% or more, with some showing truly eye-popping hikes...

We are watching the death of open frontiers in Europe The extraordinary aerial photo of a column of refugees and migrants tramping through the fields of Slovenia may come to symbolise the moment the EU began to fall apart. The irony can be lost on no one: it was in order to prevent such scenes happening again in continental Europe that the alliance was forged in the first place in the late 1950s. Yet here we are more than half a century later facing the prospect of thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands – of displaced people freezing and starving in the grasslands of eastern Europe as winter closes in.

Math scores were down for fourth and eighth graders over the last two years. And reading grades were not much better: flat for fourth graders and lower for eighth graders, according to 2015 results released Wednesday for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam.

The falling mathematics scores for fourth and eighth graders mark the first declines in math since 1990...

A.S. Haley: Ave Imperator, Te Morituri Salutamus

October 27, 2015

This page contains links to all the posts I have put up about the current sad state of the so-called Anglican Communion. “So-called”? Yes: it is certainly no longer a “Communion”, because it has very little in common, and most of its members are not talking to the rest. And it can no longer be called “Anglican”, because while that term may once have taken its meaning from the doctrines and worship of the Church of England, that body’s ever-dwindling membership, too, is no longer of one mind on just what its doctrines and worship should be.

The page of Anglican posts will soon contain a link to this one—and that may be its last.

After all, I feel a bit like the Cheshire Cat—as the meaning of “Anglican” fades away, so does any role for an “Anglican Curmudgeon.” Having left the Episcopal Church (USA) on account of its adoption of blasphemous marriage rites, I no longer even have a formal tie to the wider Communion—not that the tie was all that firm, anyway, once V. Gene Robinson received a miter and ring in 2003. Those of us who remained in ECUSA after that date, as well as any who are bravely trying to stick it out still, may fairly be described as clinging to the faintest wisps of the beauty that once was there.

There is talk of a reckoning that will be demanded at the forthcoming gathering of the Anglican Primates in Canterbury next January(n.b.: not a “Primates Meeting” as such, or one of the former, now-failed Instruments of Unity, but just a gathering that has no structure in advance). The Primates of GAFCON and the Global South will be there, along with—at the former’s insistence—the Primate of the Anglican Church in North America. This alone should serve to distinguish what will take place from what has gone before.

But what are the possible outcomes of such a gathering? Let’s be logical, and list all the possibilities (within reason)... Full essay hereimage

I conclude from this analysis that the Anglican Communion is almost certainly headed for a formally divided future -- one that reflects in fact the pro forma division which has been in existence ever since the Windsor Report and Dar-es-Salaam. Whether or not it remains a single but two-tiered entity, or becomes two entirely separate organizations (the old one, controlled by the minority, and a new one formed by the majority), will be up to the GAFCON / Global South Primates and how much they value an ongoing relationship with Canterbury. And that outcome will probably be determined by how well Archbishop Welby manages the first few hours of the meeting next January.

A powerful and punishing finale in the Heather Cook case

Dan Rodricks
October 27, 2015

For seventy-five minutes, the women who knew and loved Tom Palermo — his mother, his mother-in-law, his wife, his sisters-in-law — spoke for him while the woman who had killed him, Heather Cook, sat motionless at the trial table eight feet away, taking a punishment that will make seven years in prison seem like blessed relief.

Absolutely painful but absolutely necessary, the heartbreaking statements of the women from Tom Palermo's life resonated with anyone who had ever raised a child, who had ever fallen in love, who had ever started a family, who had ever imagined a long life with a single spouse.

In Defense of Christendom The death of Europe is in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable, but nevertheless visible and drawing nearer—like a distant planet in the lens of an approaching satellite. Europe is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or the dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants. Those desperate people are just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated civilization.

Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent. It isn’t that Europe stands for nothing. It’s that it stands for shallow things, shallowly. Europeans believe in human rights, tolerance, openness, peace, progress, the environment, pleasure. These beliefs are all very nice, but they are also secondary.

What Europeans no longer believe in are the things from which their beliefs spring: Judaism and Christianity; liberalism and the Enlightenment; martial pride and capability; capitalism and wealth. Still less do they believe in fighting or sacrificing or paying or even arguing for these things. Having ignored and undermined their own foundations, they wonder why their house is coming apart...

We Cannot Be Silent
It takes no courage to write a book that simplydriftsandbobs along in the cultural mainstream. It takes no courage to say the things that are already popular in the world around us. But to stand firm on ideas, on truths, that people despise—now, that takes courage. In that way Albert Mohler’s We Cannot Be Silent is a genuinely courageous work. It closely and critically examines the defining moral issues of our day—sex, gender, and sexuality—and stands firm on the unpopular, traditional, biblical viewpoints.

Mohler begins by positing “The Christian church in the West now faces a set of challenges that exceeds anything it has experienced in the past. … This is a revolution of ideas—one that is transforming the entire moral structure of meaning and life that human beings have recognized for millennia.” Some might accuse him of exaggeration, but I believe he is exactly right. We are caught up in a full-out moral revolution that is changing everything. “This new revolution presents a particular challenge to Christianity, for a commitment to the authority of Scripture and to revealed truths runs into direct conflict with the central thrust of this revolution.” As Christians come into conflict with the revolution, they will inevitably come into deep conflict with those who are swept up in it. “The moral revolution is now so complete that those who will not join it are understood to be deficient, intolerant, and harmful to society. What was previously understood to be immoral is now celebrated as a moral good.”

We Cannot Be Silent is Mohler’s attempt to speak truth into this moment of crisis. He does so with boldness and conviction...

“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

On December 13, 2012, the liver of a male infant at 17 weeks gestation was mailed from San Jose, California, to Massachusetts. The baby’s brain was sent to Stanford, same day delivery.

On January 10, 2013, the liver of a baby at 16 weeks gestation was sent via FedEx from San Jose to Colorado. The same day, the liver of an 18-week male was overnighted from San Jose to Placerville. All of these packages had tracking numbers.

You’ve probably guessed, correctly, that these body parts were sent from Planned Parenthood clinics. While Planned Parenthood disputes the claim made by The Center for Medical Progress that its clinics sell body parts, it doesn’t deny that it’s mailed them all over the country.

We already knew that Planned Parenthood kills babies. The abortions that end lives are the true tragedies, not the disposal of body parts. Nevertheless, the shocking fact that clinicians dismember babies and mail their organs across the country has led to a national debate about abortion, even prompting self-doubt among some abortion supporters. This is not the first time that a needed wake-up call has been delivered by a gruesome mailing.

If I had to pick the most horrifying story in the Bible, Judges 19 would win my vote hands down... the restimage

The refrain in the book of Judges is, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The result was that no one did right.

Monday, October 26, 2015

The Impact of Pornography on Children; Refugees will freeze to death, warn EU heads...more

Islamic group blocked from building 'Britain's biggest mosque' in London ...The highly controversial plans by the Tablighi Jamaatsect – accused by some of being a gateway to terror - would have created a so-called “megamosque” with 190-foot minarets and three times the floorspace of St Paul’s Cathedral. The 290,000 square foot mosque, near the Olympic Park in east London, would have accommodated up to 9,300 worshippers in two main gender-segregated prayer halls and a further 2,000 in a separate hall.

The bitterly-fought struggle has seen street blockades, accusations of racism, High Court action and even a video “obituary,” linked to from the mosque website, making implicit death threats to the main protestor against the plans and his family...

The wave of refugees brought the arms dealers in the country record sales.

The Austrians have always been one of the most armed countries in Europe. But now all the dams are broken. More than 70,000 weapons over the same period last year were sold. The most common reason for the upgrade: fear of refugees and before dawn burglars. Almost 900,000 weapons stored in households...

Refugees will freeze to death, warn EU heads
Migrants crossing the Balkans will begin freezing to death as winter approaches, the head of European Union has said, as leaders warned the continent was "falling apart" trying to deal with the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.

As leaders of eastern European countries turned on each other at a foul-tempered emergency summit in Brussels, they said the Schengen visa-free zone and even the European Union itself could be pulled apart as states threw up borders to halt the influx...

The Impact of Pornography on Children The availability and use of pornography has become almost ubiquitous among adults and adolescents. Consumption of pornography is associated with many negative emotional, psychological, and physical health outcomes. These include increased rates of depression, anxiety, acting out and violent behavior, younger age of sexual debut, sexual promiscuity, increased risk of teen pregnancy, and a distorted view of relationships between men and women. For adults, pornography results in an increased likelihood of divorce which is also harmful to children. The American College of Pediatricians urges healthcare professionals to communicate the risks of pornography use to patients and their families and to offer resources both to protect children from viewing pornography and to treat individuals suffering from its negative effects...

Marijuana Madness: The Negative Effects of Weed ...And Jodi Gilman, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, says pot smoking is an epidemic among younger smokers. As she notes, “If you go into a high school and ask the classroom, ‘Are cigarettes harmful? Is alcohol harmful?’ every kid raises [his or her] hands. But if I ask," she says, "Is marijuana harmful?--not a hand goes up.”

And while tobacco and alcohol use among 12-to-17-year-olds has fallen in the last year, habitual use of marijuana is on the rise...

Clock and Bull Story ...The case that the teen was deliberately trying to provoke a confrontation was strengthened as more was learned about his family. His older sister, Eyman, was once suspended from her school for threatening to blow it up. His uncle runs a trucking company called Twin Towers Transportation. And his father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, is a publicity hungry activist who calls himself a sheik, wears flowing white robes, and is a 9/11 Truther. The elder Mohamed routinely returns to Sudan to run as a presidential candidate, and he once debated Pastor Terry Jones of Koran-burning fame...

A Moroccan man was found to be the leader of the gang of men. He appeared in a Youtube video, encouraging Muslims to participate in jihad. He also reportedly traveled to Syria to train at an ISIS military camp...

Friday, October 23, 2015

Muslim gangs plunder German churches
Islamic gangs in Germany have broken into schools and churches and plundered collection boxes, crosses and other valuable and sacred objects used in church services, according to prosecutors.

From the schools, the men stole laptops, money and a cash card, which they used to finance ISIS jihadist fighters seeking to topple the regime of Syrian president Bashur al-Assad, alleged chief prosecutor Nadja Gudermann...

The Miami-based meteorological center, in its 10 a.m. CT (11 a.m. ET) advisory, warned of a "potentially catastrophic landfall ... in southwestern Mexico" late that afternoon or early evening. While its strength could fluctuate, "Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall."...

Episcopal Losses Accelerate
Although you likely didn’t see many headlines, the past two weeks have been significant. Biblically faithful Anglicans are witnessing encouraging developments on the global, provincial and local levels. I’ll outline three of them for you here.

First, there is increasing international recognition and support for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The Global South, a grouping of 24 out of 38 provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion, formally voted to recognize ACNA as a partner province and extended an invitation for ACNA to join the group with both voice and vote.

While ACNA has long had strong support from the leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), the Global South includes additional primates representing provinces like Burundi, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East and North Africa. Separately, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia passed a motion declaring itself “in communion” with ACNA. These orthodox allies recognize that ACNA is a partner in Gospel mission and has staying power.

Anglicans also have continuing dialogue with ecumenical partners in the Lutheran, Orthodox and messianic Jewish traditions, among others. A formal invitation by the Russian Orthodox Church for a visit by ACNA leaders early this autumn was testament to increasing common ground between the churches.

We can expect all of these developments to have an impact on the primates’ gathering that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has proposed for this coming January. You’ll recall that Welby has also issued an invitation to ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach to participate, a first for the new province.

Secondly, the Episcopal Church recently released its 2014 membership data. The top-line summary continues to be that the Episcopal Church (TEC) maintains an alarmingmembership and attendance decline unbroken since the early 2000s. Even more alarmingly, Episcopal Church baptisms have dropped by almost half in the last decade, boding poorly for the future...

How Should Christians Respond to the Transgender Phenomenon? In June, Christianity Today published an article by Mark Yarhouse, a professor of psychology at Regent University in Virginia, on “gender dysphoria.” Gender dysphoria is the APA's current description of the condition whereby someone perceives one's “gender” to be other than one's birth or biological sex. The previous designation in the APA's diagnostic manual (and in my view still preferable) is “gender identity disorder” (GID)...

As a result, it is often claimed that the New Testament was a late phenomenon. We didn’t have a New Testament, according to Athanasius, until the end of the fourth century.

But, this sort of reasoning is problematic on a number of levels. First, we don’t measure the existence of the New Testament just by the existence of lists. When we examine the way certain books were used by the early church fathers, it is evident that there was a functioning canon long before the fourth century. Indeed, by the second century, there is already a “core” collection of New Testament books functioning as Scripture...

Thursday, October 22, 2015

What precious perfume is locked inside your heart...

What about you? What precious perfume is locked inside your heart that could be lavished on our Lord? The little treasures you and I struggle to hold on to may hold back opportunities to worship Him with extravagant praise, releasing ministry and service to Him that will bless all those around us. ...Angela Munizzi image

Western European political leaders could tell the truth and act accordingly. They do not. They talk of "solidarity," "humanitarian duty," "compassion." From the beginning, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that illegal migrants were welcome: she seemed to change her mind for a moment, but quickly slid back. In France, President François Hollande says the same things as Angela Merkel...

Big in Iceland: Paganism
Next year, for the first time in a millennium, a pagan temple will wel-come Reykjavik’s faithful. The heathen house of worship, vaguely resembling a misshapen meringue, will be aligned with the sun’s path and burrowed into a hill near the city’s airport. There, like the Vikings of old, members of Iceland’s neo-pagan Ásatrú movement will be able to feast on horse meat, swig from goblets of mead, and praise deities such as Thor, the god of thunder, and Freyja, the goddess of love.

At first glance, the scene might appear bizarrely anachronistic. But although Iceland officially adopted Christianity around a.d. 1000, paganism never really disappeared from the Nordic island. The religious traditions of the Norsemen lived on—in mythology and poetry, in popular Icelandic names like Thorstein, in widespread belief in invisible elves and nature spirits. Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, an Icelandic journalist and a self-described atheist who has attended Ásatrú ceremonies, told me, “Icelanders have never really been strictly Christian,” noting that when they accepted Christianity, they did so under the condition that they be permitted to quietly practice paganism. “It’s not that people necessarily believe in the old Norse gods or have secret ceremonies in their basement,” she said. Instead, she explained, pagan values are “ingrained into our culture.”...

"First of all, I think it is due to the substantial and growing cutbacks in the number of men and women in the military, so people in the military now are less confident that they will be allowed to remain in the military -- that in the force reductions, they will be turned out, in essence, be fired, particularly for those who have some years in and probably have families -- concerns about what they will do, if because of force downsizing they end up out in the civilian world again.

"I think there is a morale problem that derives from a lot of the budgetary uncertainty in the sense that, as I suggested earlier, people who joined the military to fly airplanes, sail on ships or drive tanks are finding they don't have the same opportunities to do that anymore. That's the stuff that made it fun, and that was one of the things that encouraged them to stay...

The law, signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown on Oct. 9 and set to take effect in January, forces private religious pregnancy centers to inform every woman entering their doors about state-sponsored public programs providing immediate and free abortions for qualifying women. Under the law, centers are required to provide a phone number where clients can get more information about abortion services...

About 4,000 have arrived in Slovenia, the UN refugee agency says. Most aim to travel on to western Europe.

Texas De-Funds Planned Parenthood After it Sells Body Parts of Aborted Babies ...Today, the Office of Inspector General at Texas Health and Human Services Commission issued a letter ending Medicaid participation for Planned Parenthood affiliates in the State of Texas based on evidence of Medicaid program violations. The cancellation, consistent with Governor Abbott’s LIFE initiative, calls for funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers out of taxpayer money to be eliminated completely, both at the State and local levels...

What Slippery Slope? Throuple-Mania ...All the brainless clichés used to promote homosexual marriage are now being used to promote and excuse every other form of sexual perversion. Into a bit of polyamory? Hey, no biggee. It is all cool. After all, if two men can marry, why not three, or four, or five? The sky’s the limit.

And of course who gives a rip about the poor children dragged into this nightmare? No mother, but three “dads”. It seems that the war on children is now all but complete. The demands, wants and lusts of adults must now trump everything and everyone, including the needs and rights of the child.

Children are simply pawns and guinea pigs in adult social engineering games. Anything goes in the brave new world of fake families and social experimentation. Nothing is forbidden in this scary world of the social activists and the gender benders...

Recent studies show Ebola virus lingers on in the body, perhaps for ever ...Not much is known about Ebola after survivors get cured and declared healthy again, but researchers in their bid to know the aftermath of the disease have started to monitor survivors of past epidemics. About 19 people who survived the disease in 1995 in Congo, West Africa, experienced severe joint and vision problems after they were cured of the disease; but the researchers also found the virus can linger in the semen and eyes of survivors...

Monday, October 19, 2015

Anglican Unscripted Episode 203

Oct 19, 2015Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Communiqué of the Global South Primates, Cairo, Egypt, 14-16 October 2015

October 19, 2015

Excerpt:
After much deliberation and discussion we agreed on the following decisions:

We discussed the importance of unity among us. We affirmed the importance of blessing and encouraging each other. We are committed to working together for the expansion of God’s Kingdom.

We were happy to receive a report from Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Diocese of South Carolina, which receives Primatial oversight from the Global South. We praise the Lord for his faithful stance in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We studied the letter of invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the upcoming Primates meeting. We have agreed to attend the meeting, and welcome the invitation for the Primates to suggest the items of the agenda. We appreciate this very helpful approach, one that gives us a sense of ownership and responsibility to our meeting. We agreed on the agenda items which we will request.

We grieved one more time at the unilateral decisions taken by the last General Convention of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA to redefine marriage and to accept same-sex marriages (Resolutions A036 and A054). We see these latest resolutions as a clear departure from not only the accepted traditional teaching of the Anglican Communion, but also from that of the one Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church, which upholds the scriptural view of marriage between one man and one woman. (Lambeth Resolution 1:10, 1998.)

We moved to continue the decade of evangelism, discipleship, and networking that we began three years ago and have decided to continue the activity of the different taskforces we established in Bangkok, 2012. These taskforces are:

Evangelism, Discipleship, and Mission

Theological Resources

Economic Empowerment

Ecumenical Relations and Interfaith Dialogue

Youth

The Global South Primates re-elected the current chairman, Archbishop Mouneer Anis, as well as the current Steering Committee. These positions will remain in effect until the next Global South Conference. We also gave thanks to Archbishop Bolly Lapok for his contributions as treasurer; he will be retiring in February 2016.

We unanimously decided to reschedule the cancelled Global South General Conference in Tunisia to the first week of October 2016. The venue has yet to be decided.

As we came to the end of our meeting, we were reminded by the prayer of Jesus that our unity and love witness for Him.

Seven of the 23 co-ops created by the Affordable Care Act in 2011 at a cost of $2.4 billion — including many launched by passionate but inexperienced health reform activists — have since closed their doors. An eighth, the Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative, appears on the brink of default as well.

The failing Obamacare co-ops have canceled health insurance for largely poor and low-income customers in Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado...

U.S. confirms Iran tested nuclear-capable ballistic missile; The United States has confirmed that Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, in "clear violation" of a United Nations Security Council ban on ballistic missile tests, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

"The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's recent ballistic missile launch," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said in a statement...

Christian movie "Woodlawn" Scores Big "Woodlawn" is sure to run up a big score at movie theaters this week. It is a combination of "Remember the Titans", "Facing the Giants" and "Rudy". From the first it gets its subject of racial integration in high school sports; from the second its Christian faith theme; and from the third the presence of Sean Astin. These are three winners from the past and "Woodlawn" deserves to be in the winners category too...

The movie is based on a true story about a Birmingham, Alabama high school in the early seventies. The school is having a rough time making the transition from an all white student body to an integrated one. The coach of the football team, Tandy Gerelds (Nic Bishop) is at a loss as to how he can bring them together. But then he meets Hank (Astin), a religious motivational speaker who asks if he can speak to the team. When he does, the team is converted to Christianity.

The Bureau of Prisons disclosed the decision to The Post hours after a Republican Senate leader expressed dismay at what he implied was a wasteful survey of inmates’ food preferences and a lack of transparency in the decision...

Mohler: Playboy Opened the Floodgates and Now the Culture is Drowning ...I thought of that parable when I read the headlines that announced the news that Playboy would cease the publication of nude photographs of women in its magazine. From any moral perspective, that should appear as good news. The headlines might suggest that Playboy has had a change of heart. A closer look at the story, however, reveals a very different moral reality. Playboy acknowledged that its decision had nothing to do with any admission that pornography is morally wrong. Instead, the publishers of the magazine were acknowledging that their product was no longer commercially viable as explicit pornography because pornography is so pervasive in the Internet age that no one need buy their product.

Scott Flanders, Playboy CEO, told the media that his product had been overtaken by the larger culture. “You’re just one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And it’s just passé at this juncture.”...

ACNA Declared Partner Province by the Global South

Archbishop Beach seated on the Global South Primates Council
posted October 17, 2015Press release

Anglican Primates of the Global South, a coalition representing the majority of the world’s Anglicans, met October 14-16, 2015 in Cairo, Egypt.

During the meeting, the Anglican Church in North America was declared to be an official partner province of the Global South. In addition, Archbishop Foley Beach, who earlier in the week had preached at All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Cairo, was seated as a member of the Global South Primates Council with both voice and vote; participating fully in the meeting.

Archbishop Beach commented on the gathering, “It is a privilege and joy to represent the Anglican Church in North America as the bonds of fellowship between faithful, global Anglicans continue to be strengthened. This was a good and important week in the lives of our provinces, and I am encouraged that some of the seeds of restoration and renewal that were planted years ago are continuing to bear fruit.“

At future meetings of the Global South, the Anglican Church in North America is invited to send official representatives, and Archbishop Beach will continue to have voice and vote in the Global South Primates Council.

Sydney synod reaffirms marriage A capacity-crowd at the Sydney Synod has voted for a re-affirmation of marriage as between a man and a woman and called for all Australian Christians to respectfully engage in the public debate on redefining marriage. “If we don’t do this - what will our silence say?” argued Tara Sing, who spoke as seconder of the reaffirmation motion...

“I’m here today standing alongside my fellow clergymen and clergywomen to say: thank God for abortion providers,” said Rev. Harry Knox, president and CEO of Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) which supports abortion rights and what it refers to as “abortion care.”

Knox, who is in a same-sex marriage, was the founding director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, the first program director at Freedom to Marry, and executive director of Georgia Equality...

Earliest Known Draft of King James Bible ...But now, in an unassuming notebook held in an archive at the University of Cambridge, an American scholar has found what he says is an important new clue to the earthly processes behind that masterpiece: the earliest known draft, and the only one definitively written in the hand of one of the roughly four dozen translators who worked on it.

The notebook, which dates from 1604 to 1608, was discovered by Jeffrey Alan Miller, an assistant professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey, who announced his research on Wednesday in an article in The Times Literary Supplement.

While the notebook has yet to be examined by other scholars, experts who have reviewed Professor Miller’s research called it perhaps the most significant archival find relating to the King James Bible in decades....

A major 66-page report by the CofE's Church Buildings Review Group noted that many churches are no longer sustainable, and that about one in four parishes have fewer than 10 regular worshipers...

New York teen dies after hours-long beating at church A New York couple was charged with manslaughter in the death of their 19-year-old son after allegedly beating him for hours during a family counseling session inside the "sanctuary room" of an upstate Christian church, police said on Wednesday...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 202

Oct 14, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Planned Parenthood to forgo payment in fetal tissue programs Responding to a furor over undercover videos, Planned Parenthood says it will maintain programs at some of its clinics that make fetal tissue available for research, but will no longer accept any sort of payment to cover the costs of those programs.

Pro-life activists who recently released a series of covertly filmed videos have contended that Planned Parenthood officials sought profits from their programs providing post-abortion fetal tissue to researchers. Planned Parenthood said the videos were deceptively edited and denied seeking any payments beyond legally permitted reimbursement of costs.... (So that makes everything OK?)California gov. signs law forcing pro-life pregnancy clinics to promote abortion to women Just days aftersigning a law to allow assisted suicide, California's Catholic governor is forcing pro-life pregnancy care clinics to provide information on how to obtain abortions to women who come to them for help.

Governor Jerry Brown signed "The Reproductive FACT Act" on Friday. The law forces pro-life clinics and medical clinics licensed by the state to tell women where to obtain abortions. Additionally, a document with this information is to be posted and/or distributed at the clinic....

China Intensifies Crackdown on Christian Churches ...The Christian Post reports that under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Christians in China have experienced the worst persecution in 20 years. Particularly in the last couple years, Xi’s government has made a concerted effort to make it clear that religious activity will be closely monitored...

Statistics released this week by the denomination’s Office of Diocesan and Congregational Ministries indicate that Jefferts Schori is leaving her successor, Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry, with decline that is steepening rather than tapering off...

In other words, more firearms, less crime, concludes the virtually unpublicized research report by attorney Don B. Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser. But the key is firearms in the hands of private citizens...

Married gay priest elected to Church of England Synod; Cairo meeting of Anglican archbishops to begin on Wednesday...more

Cairo meeting of archbishops to begin on WednesdayThe Global South and Gafcon primates are scheduled to meet in Cairo on 13 Oct 2015 in Cairo, the Archbishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East tells Anglican Ink. Writing in response to a story released on 12 Oct 2015 that stated the primates had begun their meeting at All Saints Cathedral on 11 Oct 2015, Archbishop Mouneer Anis stated this was not the case, as not all of the invited leaders of the conservative and center-right coalitions were present and they had not yet begun their formal deliberations...

Terror threat forces cancellation of Global South Anglican meeting ...The threat of a terror attack has prompted the Tunisian government to cancel the Sixth South to South Anglican Conference scheduled to begin on 12 Oct 2015 in Carthage. Approximately 150 Anglican leaders from Africa, Asia, and the Americas were set to begin the week long gathering at a resort near Tunis when organizers wrote to participants on 10 Oct 2015 saying the meeting had been cancelled...

One is married, two are in civil partnerships and the fourth is planning to seal his relationship with a civil ceremony.

Early results show many openly-gay clergy winning election to the synod, the governing body of the Church, at a time when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is attempting to find a way to prevent the total fragmentation of the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality...

"Under the terms of Mrs. Harvey D. Grace's gift to the university in her will, 'This chapel will be open to all creeds and to all races of people,'" WSU President John Bardo said in a statement. "Our goal should be exactly what Mrs. Grace set out to do in her gift, to have an all faiths chapel that is welcoming to all religious groups on campus."

But what happened at Wichita State wasn't so much a renovation as it was a Christian cleansing. Anything remotely related to the décor of a Christian church was given the heave-ho...

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Teach us to number our days aright....

I see this scripture verse (Psalm 90:12) hanging on the hall closet door every time I go upstairs. Of course, since it's been there awhile, I don't always notice it. But when I do, it will prick or inspire some sort of thought process-usually a bit of conviction for wasting time, but also to remind me to ask for wisdom when I too much go it alone. I post this because Anne Kennedy has written an excellent piece called "The Numbering of Wisdom" that takes off on this verse. Check it out at her blog at patheos here.-PD

Islamic State beheads three more Assyrian Christians in latest video ...As each man identifies himself, he says: "I am a Nazarene [a Christian]". They are then decapitated, before a militant demands that $14 million is paid for the release of the remaining hostages. According to the IB Times, one ISIS fighter in the video blames the Church for not protecting the men...

Sales by China, Russia, Brazil and Taiwan are the latest sign of an emerging-markets slowdown that is threatening to spill over into the U.S. economy. Previously, all four were large purchasers of U.S. debt.

While central banks have been selling, a large swath of other buyers has stepped in, including U.S. and foreign firms...

Doctors anticipate nasty flu season ...Although the CDC officially begins tracking the spread of the virus later this month, there’s good news: According to the agency, early tests point to a better match between circulating viruses and those found in the vaccine, making this year’s shot potentially more effective than last year’s...

Church of Nigeria affirms confessional nature of Anglicanism

08 Oct 2015
by George Conger

The Church of Nigeria’s Standing Committee has released a communique following its 21-25 Sept 2015 meeting in Akure stating the terms upon which it will relate to other Anglican churches. Issued under the signature of the Primate of All-Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, the statement said 147 bishops, 152 clergy and 68 lay members of the church’s General Synod, along with representatives of various guilds met at St David’s Cathedral in Akure.

While the bulk of the statement dealt with local issues -- public corruption, the threat to the nation from Boko Haram, poverty and economic opportunity, the Nigerian church leaders address two international concerns: the ecclesiology of the Anglican Communion and Human Sexuality. action in ensuring that the effects of flooding are mitigated. People living on water ways are called upon to heed timely warnings and relocate to uplands. On the issue of same-sex marriage, it “unanimously resolved to continue to maintain the orthodox biblical stand on this matter. It also calls on her members to defend the orthodox biblical teaching on marriage and family. On its part, the Federal Government is further enjoined to continue to resist the foreign pressure to make it rescind its stand on same-sex marriage.” In its statement on ecclesiology offered under the heading: “The Anglican Communion World”, the standing committee declared: “While the Anglican Communion continues to be impaired by revisionist theologies of some Anglican Provinces, the Standing Committee calls the leadership of the Anglican Communion to repentance and renewed faith in Christ as expressed in the bible, the articles of religion and the Jerusalem Declaration, and further reaffirms our commitment on these as the basis of our relationship with other parts of the communion.”

In 2005 the Church of Nigeria revised its constitution stating that its relations with other Anglican Churches was not based upon a common link to Canterbury, but to a shared doctrine expressed in the Book of Common Prayer and traditional Anglican formularies. Last week’s statement affirms the Church of Nigeria’s belief in a confessional definition of Anglicanism.

New undercover video footage released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) shows a Planned Parenthood abortionist describing how she tears away preborn babies’ “lower extremities” in an effort to get at their torsos. David Daleiden, CMP director, shared the footage in an interview with Lila Rose, president of Live Action, posted online yesterday. The latest footage follows 10 other CMP undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s role in trafficking aborted babies’ tissue and organs.

In the brief new video segment, apparently recorded on Oct. 12, 2014, Amna Ibrahim Dermish, a Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas (PPGT) abortionist, details the graphic methods she uses during an abortion to procure the baby’s torso intact. PPGT operates abortion clinics mainly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area but also in Austin.

In the video, Dermish boasts to a CMP investigator posing as a fetal tissue buyer that she performs abortions later in a preborn baby’s development than anyone else in the PPGT affiliate. PPGT’s Dallas-based medical director, Darrel Jordan, only does abortions up to 17 weeks and 6 days, Dermish claims... the rest

“If it’s a breech presentation, I’ll remove the extremities first … the lower extremities, and then go for the spine and scrape, bring it down that way,” she says, gesturing with her right arm in a grasping and downward yanking motion.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Songs in the night...

Any man can sing in the day. It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but he is the skillful singer who can sing when there is not a ray of light by which to read. Songs in the night come only from God; they are not in the power of man. ...Charles Haddon Spurgeonimage

Brown appeared to struggle in deciding whether to approve the bill, whose opponents included the Catholic Church.

“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote in a signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”...

Violence broke out on 26 September after the body of a young Muslim man was found in Bangui, leading to retributive attacks by Muslims against Christians, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports...

Archaeologist Believes Remains of Sodom’s Fiery Destruction Have Been Found ...As the researchers work to piece together the clues, Collins says his team has identified a distinct layer of ash at the site that dates back to the Middle Bronze period. The ash could be evidence of a fiery destruction, much like the one described in Genesis 19. Pottery shards that were exposed to extremely high temperature levels have been recovered from the site—another potential indication of a fiery disaster.

Is Tall el-Hammam indeed Sodom? Collins is increasingly confident that it is...

Why Palmyra Should Matter to the West ...The Romans often behaved in a barbaric way — for example, by reducing Palmyra to a ruin — but they were not barbarians. The Islamists of the new Caliphate glory in their barbarism. They also have a growing number of admirers and apologists here. Once Isis has finished with Palmyra, the media caravan will move on to another oasis of death, with a new horror show to fill our screens. But the voyeuristic atrocities we are witnessing in Syria and Iraq are a foretaste of what the future has in store for the West — including Britain — unless we act now...

Sowell: Charlatans and Sheep ...Whenever some group is not equally represented in some institution or activity, the automatic response in some quarters is to assume that someone has prevented equality of outcomes.

This preconception of equal outcomes requires not one speck of evidence, and defies mountains of evidence to the contrary. Even in activities where individual performances are what determine outcomes, and those performances are easily measured objectively, there is seldom anything resembling equal representation...

Monday, October 05, 2015

Pelosi: When Human Life Begins Has ‘No Basis’ in Public Policy; Swedish bishop wants to remove crosses from church...more

Nancy Pelosi: When Human Life Begins Has ‘No Basis’ in Public Policy ...“No, listen, I want to say something to you,” Pelosi said. “I don’t know who you are, and you’re welcome to be here, freedom of this press. I am a devout practicing Catholic, a mother of five children. When my baby was born, my fifth child, my oldest child was six years old. I think I know more about this subject than you, with all due respect.”

“So it’s not a human being, then?” the reporter asked.

“I do not intend to respond to your questions, which have no basis in what public policy is that we do here,” Pelosi said...

South Carolina hit by torrential rainfall, eight dead ...The storm had dumped more than 20 inches (50 cm) of rain in parts of central South Carolina since Friday, the National Weather Service said. The state climatologist forecast another 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm) through Monday as the rain began to slacken...

Don’t Panic: Why Technophobes Have Been Getting It Wrong Since Gutenberg ...Although our apprehension about new tech seems to grow increasingly dire, fear has gone hand in hand with technological advancements throughout history. “It’s interesting to see the lament of each generation overwhelmed by the next new tool,” technology forecaster Paul Saffo said in a 2006 interview. “I can show you passages from scholars of Germany in the 1480s lamenting the fact that they are overloaded with all this stuff to read because of the printing press.”...

Why Ancient Rome Matters to the Modern World Failure in Iraq, debates about freedom, expenses scandals, sex advice … the Romans seem versions of ourselves. But then there’s the slavery and the babies on rubbish heaps. We need to understand ancient Rome, but should we take lessons from it?